New INKcarceration tattoo and music festival coming to OSR

Vendors and artists during the Ink in the Clink Tattoo and Music Festival on Friday at the Ohio State Reformatory. The festival runs throughout the weekend.(Photo11: Mitchell Pe Masilun/News Journal)Buy Photo

"That's what it comes down to, preserving and restoring our site," he said. "That's most of the time, all of the time, what we look towards... We're always making sure that that's part of it, but we have to ... be teamed up with the right people, the right events, you know, and the right goals."

Paul Smith said a previous OSR administration first discussed the idea for a tattoo festival in 2006, but at that time, OSR did not have the staff or volunteers to allow for that kind of event.

The Ink in the Clink organizers approached OSR nine years later, and Paul Smith said at that point, it was more doable, so the event launched in 2015.

Smith said after the contract with the Ink in the Clink organizers was not continued this year, a non-local company approached OSR with the idea for the INKcarceration event roughly six weeks ago.

He said OSR did not reach out to the INKcarceration company and emphasized OSR is not involved in the events, but acts only as a rental facility.

"We have no horse in this race except to generate the rental income to help us restore the building," Smith said.

OSR deputy director Mary Kennard said the company planning INKcarceration has not publicly announced its involvement, so she couldn't release its name.

Kennard said as the festival is a large fundraiser for OSR, calling the rental fee "substantial" but declining to name the figure, the decision was made to move forward with the INKcarceration contractor.

"It was advantageous for us to entertain another company because this is part of our programming and our fundraising," she said.

Smith said the INKcarceration contractor, while not local, will use local vendors, contractors and staff.

"The same influx will come into the community that was there before," he said.

OSR creative marketing director Dan Smith said OSR moved forward with the new festival because OSR staff "definitely knew there was still a market ... that people were still interested in doing that out here, so it was something that we wanted to kind of continue in a different way. You know, it still could be done."

INKcarceration will be July 13, 14 and 15 at the Ohio State Reformatory, 100 Reformatory Road.

Paul Smith said the INKcarceration contractor decided to have the event the same weekend as Ink in the Clink was previously scheduled.

Kennard said OSR's calendar also determined the date for the festival, as Paul Smith said the facility plans events up to 18 months in advance.

"There were only so many available weekends to do a such event," said Kennard, who said OSR didn't want the festival to conflict with other community events.

Tickets for INKcarceration will go on sale when the lineup is announced. OSR says on its website "this event will be larger than all previous years" and will include the prison tour, food, drinks, hundreds of tattoo artists, vendors and "an amazing lineup of some of the best rock and metal bands in the world."

"I think that the meetings we've had with the INKcarceration company are really positive," Kennard said. "They seem to be as community-minded as we are, and I think everyone's generally optimistic that this is gonna be a great event."